I just upgraded to Lightroom 4 from LR 3. I find that in Develop when I click on the exclamation point, "Update to current process," the image becomes grayer and bluer, in other words, worse. This for $82.16? So far I am unimpressed, but maybe over time I will change my mind.

PV 2012 may well make your images lower contrast because this process version is maintaining a lot more highlight texture and opening up the shadows–which is generally a good thing. However, I've not seen ANY color shifts when updating to PV 2012...

In general, the new PV is superior to the previous version in terms of extracting as much image detail and texture you could want. Of course, if you find it flat, you can always increase the contrast. Many people didn't actually use the older Contrast adjustment but in PV 2012, it's become a much more important control. If you images are too flat, simply increase the contrast.

In the meantime, note that the conversion from PV 2010 to PV 2012 is not a perfect 1:1 relationship. It can't be because the controls are so different. There may well be images where PV 2012 may not be as pleasing as PV 2010. For those images, I suggest you consider simply keeping them in PV 2010. I certainly don't suggest people do the PV conversion en mass..

PV 2012 may well make your images lower contrast because this process version is maintaining a lot more highlight texture and opening up the shadows–which is generally a good thing. However, I've not seen ANY color shifts when updating to PV 2012...

Jeff, I've recently seen some hue shifts when converting between PV2010 and PV2012. It seems to be in natural yellows and the fix is to pull back on tint slider (i.e reduce magenta) I sent a sample DNG to Eric a few days back.

I see it too with yellows (and not only) that have a red channel of 97% or so. But I thought it's a part of "auto-highlight roll of" that is built into PV2012. And as I underastand, color recovery is a part of that process.

Honestly, I don't quite like it, as it expands into tone that a close, but still far enough from clipping. Reminds me of hilight recovery hue shifts that everyone hated until it was fixed a year ago or so.

Jeff. I'm an admirer of your photo work and amazed by your Photoshop work. How's that for real butter?

As noted by Tom_W, when I update my LR3 photos to current process, my images seem to go 'flat' in the contrast and color saturation departments. I see the controls in Develop module zero out. Yup, I've got a question: Is that the only option for this process updating?

Thanks to Cornelia. Those are sage words. Alas, my initial comment came after I had mass Updated an entire catalog folder. Luckily I stopped there and came to the Forum. I did launch LR3, loaded the LR3 catalog containing those and compared the LR4 updates. The difference was not significant but the flatness did concern me. I will have a fall-back LR position for that early LR faux pas. And, I will take your advice to not rush into changing my 2010-images. Thanks again!

I've also noticed that where the default tone curve in 10 is medium contrast, 12 sets the tone curve to linear. Setting it back to medium contrast brings back a bit of contrast. However, I'm starting to use the contrast slider in place of the tone curve for general contrast adjustment.